


this is not a joke (love me, love me)

by kqworu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji Being an Asshole, Angst, Author projecting onto Akaashi Keiji, M/M, Unrequited Love, its one sided tho - Freeform, not an asshole just really reprehensible, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kqworu/pseuds/kqworu
Summary: Kotaro was one of those people you never fell out of love with, because loving them was the best part about yourself and even if they didn't know, they deserved every bit of your pathetic little heart.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Miya Osamu, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu
Kudos: 15





	this is not a joke (love me, love me)

When Akaashi woke up that morning, the bitter ache of pain was still there, settled in the pit of his stomach like an unwanted guest.

He didn’t remember the last time he had woken up without the pain, Akaashi thought. It hadn't always been there and he knew it -suggesting otherwise would have been way too dramatic-, but the truth was that he couldn't figure out exactly when it had begun. He knew how much time it had been since the first time, but he couldn't find in his memories the exact moment he realized the pain was there.

He felt it had alway been with him. Akaashi and the pain, the pain and Akaashi. Two sides of the same coin.

Laying in bed, he reached out and grabbed his phone from the night table. He checked the time through squinted eyes, unused to the light and affected by the headache that attacked him every morning. It was past seven, which meant he had slept little more than four hours. Akaashi cursed under his breath and got out of the sheets, pretending it wasn’t difficult.

He got up from bed, bare feet shaking against the cold floor, and dragged himself to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth, took off his pijama, showered. He relaxed his shoulders under the water, enjoying the bite of the burning drops against the skin, the neck, the nape. He got out of the shower with his pale skin turned red and got dressed to start a new day.

Akaashi got up from bed, bare feet shaking against the cold floor, and got ready to face the world pretending it wasn’t difficult.

He made coffee, rice and had breakfast like a ghost, moving slowly across his apartment. He did the same thing every morning; wake up aching and keep going.   
Sometimes, his body seemed to forget he had a routine to follow and stayed still, static in the brightest corners of the place, looking at a fixed point while the sun warmed his hands and time cooled his coffee.

This time it was his ringtone that woke him up from his trance. 

Akaashi rushed to his bedroom, with a mouthful of rice half chewed still on his mouth, and quickly checked the name on the screen before picking up.

“Akaashi, morning!”, Kotaro’s voice sang from the other side of the line. 

And there it was the pain again. 

Akaashi still couldn’t make out if hearing Kotaro’s voice made the ache worsen or mitigate. It was like burning and putting your hand under cold water, an instant relief that began to fade once you remembered why you needed the relief in the first place. Maybe Akaashi just had lowered his guard and was aware of the pain once again. 

“Good morning, Bokuto-san”, he whispered. 

“How are you doing, ‘Kaashi? How’s Tokyo and the job?”

“Stressing.” 

“Tokyo or the job?”

“Both.”

Kotaro let out a laugh. Every atom in Akaashi’s body seemed to rearrange with that laugh

“Just try to not let yourself break under all that stress, okay?” Kotaro recommended. 

Akaashi noded to the empty room like an idiot.  
He thought about telling him that he had done it already, that without stress and sadness there was nothing left of him.

“Sure”, he said instead.

“Anyways,” Kotaro continued after a second, “I called to tell you that we’re coming back after friday 's match, so don’t make plans for saturday! I miss you, y’know. Do you miss me, ‘Kaashi?”

“Not at all”, lied Akaashi.

Kotaro had been away for a month now, playing with the Black Jackals. They had talked on the phone for hours and Akaashi made sure to never miss a match on the TV, but it didn’t compare to having him by his side.   
He would've liked to say that it was the first time he felt like this -empty, bored, miserable, alone-, but the truth was he had spent his entire life missing Kotaro, even when he was within reach.

“You're so mean to me, ‘Kaashi!”, Kotaro grumbled “I need to get new friends if you’re gonna treat me like this!” Akaashi heard laughter, someone else’s voice telling Kotaro to ‘Leave the goddamn phone already, they had to warm up’ and Kotaro yelling back “Yeah, yeah, in a minute’. “I gotta go,” he said to Akaashi” you heard Omi!”

Akaashi remembered his days of high school. Mornings with Kotaro napping on his shoulder, evenings in the gym, the sight of his naked back in the dressing room and the blistering embraces after every match   
Akaashi remembered waking up one morning and thinking “I’m in love with him”, and then bursting into tears, because he knew it would be like this for the rest of his life.  
Kotaro was one of those people you never fell out of love with, because loving them was the best part about yourself and even if they didn't know, they deserved every bit of your pathetic little heart. 

“I've been in love with you since i was fourteen”, Akaashi thought, and then, because he was a coward he said:

“Go. Good luck on friday.”

“Thanks ‘Kaashi! See ya next week and don't forget, no plans for saturday!”

Akaashi hung up first. Every inch of his body was awake. Alive. It had been a month since the last time he felt so intensely.

He hated it so much it made him sick.

He threw the phone onto the bed. The device bounced on the mattress and fell onto the floor, but he did not care. He was at the door, putting his shoes on and wrapping his blue scarf around his neck, working himself inside his coat. He was on the street in less than ten minutes.

.

Walking inside Onigiri Miya was more cold water on the burn.  
The heat of the shop and the brightness of the lightbulbs warmed his cheeks.  
He was out of breath. 

He unwrapped his scarf and climbed on one of the tables, making sure there weren't any more customers in the store. 

“Hey. Didn't know you were coming today”.

Akaashi looked up. Osamu Miya was staring at him. 

A few silver strands of hair were guessed from beneath his cap, falling against the bridge of his nose. His grey eyes studied Akaashi, expecting. The black uniform shirt wonderfully hugged his arms and chest. The tempting edges his collarbones peeked from below the shirt.   
Akaashi knew that, if the cloth lowered just a bit, he could see freckles and underneath, the lovebite he had left three days ago.

“Are you buying anything?” Osamu asked, coming out from behind the counter.

Akaashi shook his head.

“I just wanted to see you”, he said.

Osamu’s lips curled up into a smile.

“Oh. Okay.”

Akaashi’s chest felt heavy. He didn’t deserve any of this. 

“Missed you,” Osamu said, getting closer, “i texted you to ask if you wanted to go out the other night but you didn’t respond, so I guessed you were busy.” 

“Yes. Sorry.” Akaashi scratched the back of his neck. “A lot of work.”

Osamu climbed on the table next to him, arms crossed in front of his chest. Sitting like this, shoulder against shoulder, they looked like old friends chatting in the middle of the working day.

“You alright?”Osamu Asked, voice low and deep, barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah, really, I’m good. Just tired. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“You do sound tired.” Osamu caressed the back of Akaashi's hand with his fingers, making him shiver. “Want me to go tonight? I can cook something and make sure you go to sleep at a decent hour.”

Akaashi snorted and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“I don't think i'd sleep at a decent hour having you in my place, but i'll gladly accept the food, thank you very much”. 

Osamu laughed. A genuine laugh, that made his face wrinkle and shaked him from head to toes. He was beautiful.  
Akaashi couldn’t help but smile too, his belly warming. It was, maybe, the closest thing to love he could ever feel towards him.

“So, it’s true what people say”, Osamu murmured, the remains of the laugh still in his voice.

“What do people say?”

“The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.”

Akaashi looked out the shop window, the gray skies and streets full of people. 

‘A man's heart,’ he thought. 

The truth was, he didn't think Osamu had gotten into his heart. He could feel him everywhere else, though. His mouth, his neck, his waist, his hips, even his head. Akaashi did thought of Osamu. But he didn't feel him, not where it mattered. 

“So,” Osamu said, “Am I invited tonight?”

“You are always invited, you know it.”

Smiling, Osamu sighed and leaned over him. First, Akaashi thought he was going to kiss him -there, where everyone could enter the shop and see them-, but instead of going for his mouth, Osamu’s teeth grazed the skin behind Akaashi’s ear. 

Every hair on his body stood on end.

Akaashi wondered what Kotaro would think if he saw them.   
Would he be jealous? Would it hurt? Would his insides twist with rage if he knew what Akaashi let Osamu do with his body? Would he even care at all? 

The tip of Osamu’s tongue roamed the place where his teeth had been, and then he sucked hard. Akaashi gasped.

Akaashi wondered if he knew, if he realized that his lover's head was lost in other hands, another mouth. 

Osamu pulled away from him with a giggle.

“See ya tonight, the. Maybe I'll even close earlier.”

Akaashi bit his lips, adjusting his jeans.

“That would be really nice.”

“That's why I'm doing it” Osamu squeezed Akaashis wrist lovingly, “I gotta keep working. There's a few hours till lunch time.”

“Sure. I'll let you work. See you later”. 

“See ya,”Osamu said. And then, when Akaashi already had his hand on the doorknob, he added: “I love you.”

Akaashi froze.

He wasn't expecting it to get this far. He expected Osamu to get tired of him, to meet someone who could love him like he deserved.

Akaashi didn't want it to get this far. He had wanted someone to warm the bed while he spent the night thinking about his high school crush. He had wanted another form of escapism, someone to kiss him senseless against his mattress and just leave him there, empty and alone to drown in his self pity. 

He looked at Osamu, impossibly beautiful. 

He could never love him.

And then, because he was a coward he said: 

“Love you too.”

The light that crossed the other man's eyes broke every piece of him that was still standing.

The truth was, he didn’t love Osamu. And he knew where this would end.  
A decent beginning, then days without talking. Screaming, crying, rolled eyes. The lies. The denying. The realization.  
Osamu hadn't been the first man Akaashi tried to love, the first heart Akaashi broke trying to fix his own.

Akaashi went out to the street. 

‘He is a good man”, he told himself, ‘perhaps I could learn to love him’

He took a deep breath with his eyes closed, tasting.

The bitter ache of pain was still there, settled in the pit of his stomach like an unwanted guest..

“Perhaps this time it'll work,” he lied to himself, “Perhaps this time I’ll forget about him.”

**Author's Note:**

> So! First of all, a massive thank you if you read all of that. It's crazy, seriously. It's my first time posting in here, which scares me a little bit but hey, you gotta begin somewhere.  
> As you might have noticed, English is not my first language!! Feel free to correct my grammar or choice of words <3
> 
> Thanks for reading, honestly. Comments are immensely appreciated xx


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